As the NKPA tanks entered Seoul, just evacuated by American nationals, President Truman ordered American air and sea forces in the Far East to support the shattered ROK army. With the U. S. Seventh Fleet protecting Formosa, Task Force 77 bombed and bombarded points on the Korean coast. Far East Air Forces (FEAF), consisting of eight and a half combat groups commanded by Lieutenant General George E. Stratemeyer, USAF, flew interdictory strikes meanwhile from bases in Japan against NKPA supply lines. Within a few days the NKPA air force, consisting of about 100 Yak-type planes, was driven from the skies except for occasional night raids. It would appear that a mountainous peninsula of few good roads would be a favorable area for strategic bombing, since our naval forces were denying the sea lanes to the enemy. Yet the FEAF bombers could not prevent the aggressors from bringing up supplies at night by means of truck, animal, and human transport. The columns of invasion were doubtless hampered, but they continued to roll on southward in spite of interdictory strikes. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief, Far East (CinCFE), concluded on 29 June, during his first flying visit to the front, “that air and naval action alone could not be decisive, and that nothing short of the intervention of U. S. ground forces could give any assurance of stopping the Communists and of later regaining the lost ground.”[4] Unfortunately, he had only the four understrength divisions of the Eighth U. S. Army at his disposal in the Far East. During the two World Wars the United States had been able to raise and train armies while allies held the line. But no such respite was forthcoming in Korea, and the first U. S. ground forces at the front consisted of a small task force flown from Japan--an incomplete battalion reinforced by a battery of artillery. [4] Quoted from report of Chief of Staff, FECOM: LtGen Edward M. Almond (USA). _United Nations Military Operations in Korea, 29 June 1950–31 December 1951_ (Carlisle Barracks, 1952), 10–11. (Hereafter, Almond, _UN Mil Ops_.) The date was 2 July 1950. And on this same Sunday, CinCFE sent a request to Washington for the immediate dispatch of a Marine regimental combat team (RCT) with appropriate air to the Far East. _Authorization of Marine Brigade_ It is not quite a coincidence that 2 July happened also to be the date of General Shepherd’s arrival at Pearl Harbor. Previous decisions in Washington had made it virtually certain that General MacArthur’s request would be granted, and CG FMFPac was on his way to the Far East to prepare for the reception of the Marine reinforcements.